Railroads - what the hell they do exactly?

[Handel]

Except reducing the travel points, of course?
Neither the manual, nor the civilopedia gives any info about railroads. Even there is no mention of the railroads at all in the "improvements" section!

[GeoModder]

They give 1 extra hammer for mines and lumbermills when worked.

[aracuan_76]

indeed!

they did provide indeed one extra hammer-but what the programmers should aware of is that developing of the railroads brought a major revolution in merchants all over europe and wherever train was passing by.so not only the hammers but the trade should be increased.unefortunately some idiot people who are in the unluck position to create major stupidities like this,are destroying our loving game.hope a utility programm to fix this.

[Nacht]

So you actually enjoyed moving workers to every last tile to built railroads aracuan?

[aracuan_76]

lol

lol

well,
no...to say the truth in the last game i was in resaerching future tech without had an inch of railroad in my land.i dont know if your tone is sarcasm,however i m 29 years old ,my favourite lesson was history and from the whole book packs i have read regarding the"railroad revolution"u would understood what was happened then.railroads change from then our lives.it was perhaps the biggest industrial revolution ever.i m very sad that in civ iv the only that are offering is fastest movement.do you remember what in civ 1 and in civ 2 did?
in these games it was worth the while to look and build them.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by Nacht
So you actually enjoyed moving workers to every last tile to built railroads aracuan?

Whilst it is besides the point, I happen to enjoy railroading every last tile.

[Adm.Naismith]

Re: lol

Originally posted by aracuan_76
i dont know if your tone is sarcasm,however i m 29 years old ,my favourite lesson was history and from the whole book packs i have read regarding the"railroad revolution"u would understood what was happened then.railroads change from then our lives.it was perhaps the biggest industrial revolution ever.i m very sad that in civ iv the only that are offering is fastest movement.do you remember what in civ 1 and in civ 2 did?

I suppose it's not sarcasm, but a way to explain that tuning railroads effects has been one of the most voiced request in the last past years (check it by yourself, searching "railroad" in forum or inside the many suggestion "Lists".
On a history base you have some points (but that change a lot in different countries: e.g. USA railroad development was quite different from italian railroads development and effects).
On a gameplay effect the overdeveloped net of railroads was a bad side effect of a "no maintenance cost=large trade benefits" model of previus Civ...

So far, I'm happy with the new Civ 4 model, but I bet a modder can help you in couple of month to bring back all that special effects.

[Hayden]

The development of the Railroad technology use to be one of the most important and crucial in previous versions of the game and while its still sort after it has been tapered very nicely I think. It no longer is the critical technology it used to be.

[Tiberius]

It'd nice if railroads could give trade bonuses as well, although railroading every tile for that trade bonus doesn't make sense either (or maybe it makes sense from a realistic point of view, but it is a micromanaging nightmare)

How about moving the bonus into the cities? So once a city is connected via railroad to the capital, the existing trade routes would automatically generate more commerce and/or the city tile itself could generate extra commerce.

[Fried-Psitalon]

Originally posted by Hayden
The development of the Railroad technology use to be one of the most important and crucial in previous versions of the game and while its still sort after it has been tapered very nicely I think. It no longer is the critical technology it used to be.

Um... I guess you don't consider a major production boost and much faster transit times critical, then?

[dschur]

Civ4 is all about more subtle advantages. When I get railroad, I think the first thing I do is start adding a railroad to every worked Mine. +1 Hammer is nothing to sneeze at, especially with Forges or factories acting as a multiplier to base production.

Then I tie in a decent rail network for transportation of units from my core cities out to the borders. I can honestly say I am not missing the old drive to railroad every square in the game.

With this + to production, and a fast path for getting units to your front lines you have a very strong advantage built up. It isn't the insane effect it was in the past, but since most upgrades are smaller anyway, this one fits in well, and cannot safely be ignored

[Hayden]

Originally posted by Fried-Psitalon


Um... I guess you don't consider a major production boost and much faster transit times critical, then?

I never said I dont consider it critical, but the effect of railroad has been tapered, that you cant deny. And I think it was about time aswell. I still tend to spam railroad over my entire territory as soon as I can, since I have nothing else to do with those workers (not even clean pollution) but atleast it does not make or break the game as it did previously. The fact that you cant travel infinite moves over it anymore is the most welcome change.

[Fried-Psitalon]

Actually, your exact and precise words were...

It no longer is the critical technology it used to be.

That's pretty clear.

The effect has been tapered, but the effect of everything has been tapered and more effects added. There is no single massive advantage anymore, just a growing number of small ones.

[Kidinnu]

In my trials last night, Railroad only added +1 hammer at mines already producing 4 (5?) or more.

But you could possibly make it do what you wanted to quite easily - Assets/XML/Misc/RouteInfos.xml defines the effects of roads and railroads, and it has a field. You can see in terrains and in specialists, for an example of how to try setting those up. My one concern is that there's no sign in there of any production bonus from railroads in that XML file; it may completely ignore in routes.

It doesn't seem to give you any *complex* control, like adding extra commerce only if the square is already producing some; for that you'd have to go to Python. In Assets/Python/PyHelpers.py and mess with pyPlot. For example, in getCommerceYield it just calls the SDK for the plot's commerce yield; you could add a check of route type & all the complicated logic you wanted here. Something like:

  def getCommerceYield(self):
    "int - commerce yield"
    iYield = self.plot.getYield(YieldTypes.YIELD_COMMERCE)
    if ((self.getRouteType() == RouteTypes.ROUTE_RAILROAD)) && (iYield > 1))
      iYield = iYield + 1
    return iYield

(No, this isn't tested at all; I'll go get a Python book tonight & learn the language before I write any more code on the forums. )

[binTravkin]

How about adding a commerce boost to a trade route (between cities) if they are connected by RR?

Also how about adding +1 coin for railroaded cottages?